]]>Climate Scientist and Mom Will be First Lady's Guest at the State of the Uniontag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2015:/theblog//3.65114582015-01-20T18:25:39-05:002015-03-22T05:59:01-04:00Dominique Browninghttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dominique-browning/meeting with EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. This evening Nicole will be sitting in the First Lady's box as President Obama delivers his sixth State of the Union address. To me, this signals the president's commitment to doing all he can to tackle the dangerous problem of climate pollution. And so I am celebrating.

Nicole is the mother of a 7-year-old son and the leader of the Florida chapter of Moms Clean Air Force. She was born in Guatemala and moved to the U.S. when she was four; she became a climate scientist.

In that meeting, I listened to her talk passionately, urgently, about the porous limestone bedrock on which Miami is built, and how sewage and drainage systems are increasingly compromised by seawater rising through the ground. I thought: how can we share Nicole's knowledge, her clear way of speaking, and her passion with the people of Florida -- with the nation -- and empower them to act on climate change? I felt an urgent need to make that happen.

Nicole soon left academia to join Moms Clean Air Force, and she has concentrated her work in the Latina community. She says, "The debate is settled, our climate is changing, our seas are rising. Now is the time for action. I worked to confirm that human activity is changing our climate, and now I am working on behalf of my son for action -- we need to fight climate change today."

I could not be more inspired by Nicole -- and by so many parent climate activists protecting those closest to our hearts. The love we all feel -- for our families, and for this beautiful world -- will win the day. Love is stronger than pollution.]]>New York Bans Fracking After Health Report Calls It Unsafetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2014:/theblog//3.63489342014-12-18T13:42:40-05:002015-02-17T05:59:01-05:00Dominique Browninghttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dominique-browning/ban fracking in New York State because of medically-established concerns about the health and safety of people who live near oil and gas development -- as well as scientifically-based evidence of possible water and soil contamination. This is a win for New York -- and a win for a clean energy economy.

However. New York is the 5th-largest consumer of natural gas in the United States. That means New Yorkers bear a moral responsibility for making oil and gas development safer for all the people living near and working in the industry. Thousands are now suffering, while we burn this fuel. New York City has miles and miles of pipeline in an aging infrastructure. We need to know what's leaking so we can fix it.

New Yorkers also have to keep up the pressure on Governor Cuomo to make New York State a leader in clean energy development and deployment -- and get economic growth into the areas that so desperately need it.

Many thanks to all of you who united to keep New York moving in the right direction. And thank you, Governor Cuomo, for supporting medical and science experts. Here's to your continued leadership towards a clean and vibrant energy future.

This is one of those moments: I want to grab everyone I know and say, you MUST see this movie -- Merchants of Doubt. Made by the director of Food Inc., and based on the remarkable book by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, the documentary shows exactly how a small, well-trained group of PR people crafted a massive campaign to confuse Americans about climate change -- Democrats and Republicans alike, all the way on up to President Obama. "We can't attack the science," says one, knowing that the science is overwhelming in its warnings about global warming. "So we're attacking the scientists."

It's all on film -- there was no deception in getting the interviews. How the deniers adapted the techniques from the campaign that paralyzed smoking regulations for fifty years, using lawsuits and lying under oath while lung cancer claimed one life after another. How they did the same thing with flame retardants. And then did it again to suppress, distort and deny information on climate change. They knew: all they had to do was confuse the public to protect the profits of the fossil fuel industry.

Truth usually outs, in time. But we don't have time, not with global warming. We have to slow carbon and methane emissions, now -- the window is closing, and soon we will be seeing irreversible and extraordinarily dangerous consequences of temperatures that are higher than they have ever been in human history.

After the screening, director Robert Kenner told the stunned audience that one of the most able disinformation campaigners bragged to him about just how good he was: "I could stand a garbage man next to climate scientist Jim Hansen in front of a camera -- and make the American public believe the garbage man on the science."

South Carolina Republican Bob Inglis has the final word. He lost a political race when he dared to say that climate change was real, and we had to do something about it. He tells us why he took a moral position to stop denying the science. It is all about his children, and grandchildren. About doing the right thing.

As the credits rolled by, I noticed that this moving, powerful film was produced in part with the generosity of Omidyar Networks -- as in Pierre Omidyar, the brilliant creator and chairman of eBay.

But eBay is a member ALEC, an organization that is playing a huge role in the very disinformation campaign this movie exposes. How is this morally defensible? eBay is lending them its halo of respectability, betraying its own core values. It is time for eBay to withdraw from denier machine ALEC.

Fair is fair, though: a huge thank you to Pierre Omidyar -- and everyone else involved -- for bringing to the screen the story of the most immoral, dangerous and effective PR campaign ever foisted on the American people.

Over 400,000 people marched. We came from all over the world-mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, grandmothers, uncles: the people. Blessed to be alive, joyful to be here. The people: Outraged at the greedy corporate polluters hijacking our world. The people: Demanding that we ramp up the race for clean energy.

At the start, we formed a circle and Peter Yarrow (of Peter, Paul and Mary) led us in singing "This land is your land, this land is my land, From California, to the New York island." And we felt it: This is our land. We are taking it back. My tears came when we began chanting: "This is What Democracy Looks Like!"

We expected to be marching with parents, with environmentalists and with members of the environmental justice community. But here's what democracy looks like: Doctors and nurses turned out in force, underscoring how dangerous global warming is to people's health. Labor unions marched. There were summer camps and congregations, alumni organizations and neighborhood groups. There were artists and politicians, anarchists and CEOs. Teachers joined -- with their students from colleges, high schools, from middle schools.

We are going to win this fight. The tide is turning. The Rockefeller family announces it will divest its foundation of fossil fuel holdings. Mayor de Blasio commits NYC to an 80 percent reduction of greenhouse gas pollution by 2050. Texas is a national leader in wind energy, with more turbines and more jobs than any other state. There are more jobs, by tens of thousands, in the solar industry than the coal industry. The list goes on. And will grow on.

We unite against cynical and willful denial, against corporate greed, against polluters who are doing everything they can to overturn our beloved democracy -- lying about what they do, sowing confusion and hiding the damage they are inflicting.

]]>Moms Unite: Fighting For a Bright Future For Our Childrentag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2014:/theblog//3.56734972014-09-21T18:56:35-04:002014-11-21T05:59:02-05:00Dominique Browninghttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dominique-browning/
I'm a classic introvert. Not the kind of person who hits the streets to join a parade -- much less a protest. HOWEVER. We are confronted with a problem unlike any we have ever seen in our lives -- or in the history of the world: radically warming temperatures brought about by greenhouse gas pollution from around the world.

Scientists examining pristine ice core samples taken from Antarctica have learned that we have more carbon in our atmosphere than at any time in 800,000 years.

Here's the good news: We can slow down the changing of our climate. I was recently talking with my 25-year-old son about the work we're doing at Moms Clean Air Force; he was asking about solar energy. Something suddenly hit me: When I was his age, computers were just beginning to be widespread. My entire adult life has been lived in a technology revolution. We are now at the beginning of a clean energy revolution. Our children are growing up in a world that will be drastically different from what it is now. In 20 years, they might be getting their power from sources we do not even now imagine. Just as we never imagined computers small enough to fit in a pocket.

This is an incredibly exciting time. But we have one very important thing to do: make sure that our laws, our regulations -- and the political leaders in charge of them -- know we want a bright and clean future. That we care, deeply, about the threat of global warming. That we want clean power.

That's enough to get me into the streets.

If you are an extrovert, come, enjoy, be inspired -- and get charged up for the big job in front of us. If you are an introvert, come, enjoy, be inspired -- and rest up afterwards.

We have important work to do. Help us lead with Momfulness. Help us show the world: We MUST stop greenhouse gas pollution.

This blog post is part of the #WhyICare blog series, curated by the editors of HuffPost Generation Change in recognition of the People's Climate March in New York City on September 21, 2014. To see all the other posts in the series, click here.

Join the conversation on Twitter and tell us why you care about the climate crisis with the hashtags #WhyICare and #PCM. For more information about the People's Climate March, click here.

#WhyICare Tweets
]]>Failure Is Not an Optiontag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2014:/theblog//3.58358622014-09-17T13:21:57-04:002014-11-17T05:59:01-05:00Dominique Browninghttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dominique-browning/

Sometimes failure is a good teacher. We fail exams, love affairs fail, we fail to stay on diets or we fail to find our keys. We learn something about ourselves in the process.

But there is another kind of situation, when lives are on the line. When we confront moral obligations that push us to the limits of our strength, passions, and ingenuity.

Failure is not an option.

That's what is in my mind as I prepare to do something I truly dislike: get tangled up in NYC crowds for the People's Climate March on Sunday September 21st.

I have to be able to say to myself, I did everything I could.

I'm marching for love -- the love of my children, my family, my friends, and for the love of this brimming, buzzing, beautiful world of ours.

We must stop the greenhouse gas pollution that is causing earth's atmosphere to warm up. We can do this. We have the resources to move into a world powered by clean, renewable energy.

The consequences of a failure to act now on climate pollution -- for all of humanity -- are unthinkable.

Failure is not an option.

Please join all of us at Moms Clean Air Force in New York to march. And if you can't, please tell EPA to act now, decisively, swiftly, and with strength, to get the Clean Power Plan enacted.

Failure is not an option. And success is thrilling. We will look back on these years and understand that we were at the beginning of a global Energy Revolution, with the entire world turning to clean sources of power from wind and sun.

This blog post is part of the #WhyICare blog series, curated by the editors of HuffPost Generation Change in recognition of the People's Climate March in New York City on September 21, 2014. To see all the other posts in the series, click here.

Join the conversation on Twitter and tell us why you care about the climate crisis with the hashtags #WhyICare and #PCM. For more information about the People's Climate March, click here.

We've just spotted a new form of conservative protest against the EPA and the Clean Air Act: Coal Rollers. Pick-up trucks customized to spew black smoke -- "the newest weapon in the culture wars."

As one salesperson of these trucks put it: "You want clean air and a tiny carbon footprint? Well, screw you." The people driving these trucks spew black smoke over anyone they think looks like an environmental softie-people driving Priuses or riding bikes, for instance.

Let's compare this "Right to Pollute" attitude with that of a polluter who now wants to do right by the world. Tom Steyer is a former hedge fund manager who is forcefully and effectively using his vast wealth to support regulations that will slow down climate change. He will invest $100 million in political races around the country this year; he is targeting places where polluting climate deniers, backed by the Koch Brothers, are trying to stop any action to curtail the dangerous carbon pollution that is wreaking havoc on our world.

Recently The New York Timespublished a story about one large source of Steyer's wealth from Farallon Capital Management: Coal. Investments in massive coal plants around the world, in Australia, Indonesia, China.

Steyer sold his stake in Farallon in 2012. He divested his own portfolio of fossil-fuel holdings. And he began focusing on climate pollution.

The article triggered dismay from environmentalists around the world -- and, naturally, jubilation among polluters, who say Steyer's credibility is thoroughly undermined.

But one thing is missing from this conversation, and it is an important acknowledgement: We are ALL complicit in fossil fuel fortunes, whether we are middle class or mega wealthy. We have all benefited, enormously, from the cheap and abundant and reliable power that has come of oil and coal. We have all been blithely turning on the lights, powering up the computers, putting the key in the ignition, without a thought to where that amazing, wonderful, life-enhancing power comes from -- much less what it might be doing.

Most of us didn't know, until recently, what the consequences of carbon and methane pollution might be. We didn't understand -- and still find it nearly unbelievable -- that we have altered the very chemistry of the oceans and the skies.

Now we know. And now, we have a moral obligation to clean up. That's exactly what Steyer is doing. He cannot undo the past -- any more than any of us can. He can make reparation-and to my mind, that's what his climate activism is about.

And someday, new fortunes will be made, from industries creating renewable energy, and battery storage, and things we haven't dreamed of yet.

Back to those Unholy Coal-y Rollers. In case you think this is just silly extremism: This attitude goes all the way to the highest levels of government. Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader, a Republican from Kentucky, is right now actively trying to defund the EPA. It's the equivalent of asking Americans to suck up all that pollution.

Only as we begin to know something -- or someone -- can we truly begin to love it. This thought came to me as I was reading a marvelous book about water. I should say: looking at the book, because the photographs of droplets and bubbles and steam are marvelous.

The author, Walter Wick, also created the photographs for the I spy series that so many of us pored over with our children. A Drop of Water was first published in 1997 -- but somehow I missed it until just recently. Though written for children, it covers subjects like surface tension and condensation. Finally, I understand the capillary action that helps a plant "drink" water.

By the end of the book, I better appreciated water's mysterious and beguiling ways; I had fallen in love with it -- all over again. That makes it so much more precious to me.

We could all understand more about the basic elements around us. Air. Water. Soil.

Maybe that knowledge will lead us to wanting to protect this miraculous home we're born into -- and truly conserve it.

Maybe guilt trips about waste and pollution aren't the way to motivate us to conserve.

Maybe it is awe and wonderment of this miraculous world that will lead us to change our ways.

So: Take a swan dive into your favorite swimming hole. Float down a river. Raise a cool glass of water to refresh yourself in summer's heat. Cuddle up with your 10-year old and wander through Walter Wick's photographs.

Parents' voices matter. A lot. As I like to say: No politician wants to make a mother angry. And nothing makes us angrier than threats to the little (and big) ones we love so dearly.

Global warming is a huge threat. All across the country, parents are uniting around solutions. We are transcending party politics to focus on the big picture: We are all in this together.

Moms Clean Air Force invited a selection of parent groups to share why they are committed to fighting global warming; their messages follow.

The polluters will sue for the right to pollute. They'll do the usual--the 3 Ds. Deny. Distort. Delay.

We're ready for them. We are here to protect our children.

Victoria Loorz - iMatter

"When my son was 13, after watching An Inconvenient Truth, he had a deep sense that denial on the climate crisis was threatening the future of his generation. Although I am a single mom who lives below the poverty level, and a part-time pastor, I have devoted myself to supporting his mission to awaken his generation to stand up for their right to a livable planet. We started a non-profit organization, Kids vs. Global Warming, and the iMatter campaign, to empower other young leaders to stand up as well, against all odds, to be heard as the moral authorities on this issue. It's been heartbreaking to watch my child grow up and struggle with despair. He's pushed on in this work fighting climate change -- when he just wanted to "be a kid." You can't "unknow" truth once you are brave enough to face it. How can we do anything else?"

iMatter believes the voice of the generation most impacted by the climate crisis must be heard. Addiction to fossil fuels has put the future of our entire generation at risk. That's why we have the moral authority that insists that our society learns to...Live as if our future matters.

Lisa Hoyos - Climate Parents

"In 2008 when my now six year old was four months old, I heard a radio news story about how much biodiversity would be lost due to climate change by 2035. It wasn't about losing a species here and there; it was about the risk to the ocean ecosystem and food supplies. I had been an environmental and labor campaigner for a couple of decades, but something powerful overtook me as I looked at my then four month old baby -- he will be in his twenties in the year 2035. I thought, parents should be at the helm of the movement for climate solutions. A couple of years later, I joined forces with environmental journalist Mark Hertsgaard, author of Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth, and we formed Climate Parents."

Climate Parents is engaging parents and families in concrete campaigns to stop dirty energy, like coal exports, and to grow "kid safe, climate safe" energy. We agree with the energy experts who say that we can attain 100% clean energy. We are working to leverage our power as parents to ensure that policies are in place to get us there. Climate Parents is boosting parent advocacy online and on the ground to gain wins like strong cuts to carbon pollution from power plants and expanded renewable energy standards. Parents, by definition, work hard to get things done, and fighting for climate change is now part of our job description.

Kelsey Wirth - Mothers Out Front

"Mothers Out Front is working to develop mothers' voices and power as an organized constituency that can push for a swift and complete transition away from fossil fuels to clean and renewable energy sources. We take action in our homes, in our communities, and at the state and national levels."

Mothers Out Front We are mothers, grandmothers, and other caregivers who can no longer be silent and still about the very real danger that climate change poses to our children's and grandchildren's future.

Angela Monti Fox - The Mothers Project™

"As a mental health professional and mother of filmmaker Josh Fox, creator of Gasland and Gasland Part II, I founded The Mothers Project to unite mothers to respond to America's exploitation of natural gas and the untested method of high volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing. The Mothers Project has since become a force for sustainable energy solutions moving us away from all forms of extreme energy extraction, while working toward change in support of sustainable energy solutions. By reaching out and uniting mothers to become educated about the devastating effects the fossil fuel industry has on children's health, The Mothers Project takes a different focus on the impact of climate change."

The Mothers Project™ humbly accepts the leadership role as a unifying force for mom-created American grassroots organizations, beginning in our country and expanding throughout the globe. The Mothers Project™ is based on knowledge gained from the scientific community as it informs the detrimental effects of fossil fuel and nuclear power production.

Harriet Shugarman - ClimateMama

"I hope to educate and inform Climate Mamas and Papas of all ages from all around the world about the realities of the climate crisis -- to inspire and empower Climate Mamas and Papas to work together -- creatively, thoughtfully and purposefully to help create a better, stronger and healthier WORLD. The "WORLD" is THE definitive word for us, as for each of us it has it's own meaning, including but not limited to: our children, our home, our community, our place of business, our schools, our houses of worship, our government entities, and also the bigger, 'harder to get your arms around' WORLD, our Planet Earth."

ClimateMama offers hope and a collective path which we can all follow, so that we can find the moral courage to fight for and demand a clean, renewable and sustainable future and now for ourselves, our children and for generations to come.

Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner -MomsRising

"To not resist climate change, to not fight to protect our children and keep their future as bright as possible, is unimaginable.

There's nothing more important to us than our children and their well-being. Today, the air pollutants underlying climate change -- linked to ailments ranging from premature birth to asthma and learning disabilities -- already harm kids' health. And tomorrow? We have yet to fully understand how the changing climate will impact everything from their physical safety to their employment prospects.

And so we fight for a healthy future."

MomsRising.org is an on-the-ground and online grassroots organization of more than a million members who are working to achieve economic security for all moms, women, and families in the United States.

Joylette Portlock, Ph.D. - Communitopia

"There isn't a more meaningful, effective policy step at this point than regulating production of carbon pollution from our energy sector. The science is settled. Because of our inaction on curbing carbon pollution so far, our kids and grandkids are already stuck with a suite of new environmental challenges. They'll be the ones to pay the price for our abuse of resources - but we still get to decide how big the final bill will be. The new pollution rule will be an essential step to stopping catastrophic climate change. And, it will also send a much-needed message, that there is both hope for the future, and the means to fulfill it."

Communitopia is a nonprofit organization that uses media and humor to inform, entertain, and empower the public to take effective climate action. Through our ongoing video series, Don't Just Sit There - Do Something!, we work to build public support for meaningful policy action.

Lori Popkewitz Alper - Groovy Green Livin'

"As a mother of three boys, it is implausible to imagine saddling our children with the world as it presently exists. Climate change is not only a reality, but also a true threat that we are experiencing now, and our children risk inheriting the problem. I founded Groovy Green Livin with the hope of creating a space for families to collectively join forces and advocate for change. Our children deserve a world where they can play freely, without the worries past and present generations have created. The time to act is now."

Groovy Green Livin'is dedicated to providing an honest and credible setting for sharing green ideas, thoughts and other useful tips and trends relating to living a greener lifestyle. Simple, small changes in your life can lead to a non-toxic, healthier lifestyle and a greener planet.

Dominique Browning - Moms Clean Air Force

"The world is watching. It is time for leadership from the United States. President Obama announced a significant measure to slow global warming--and Moms Clean Air Force salutes the plan to protect us from the unregulated carbon spewing from coal-fired power plants. It continues a great--and pragmatic--bipartisan tradition of using the Clean Air Act to safeguard our families from harmful pollutants. Three and a half years of nation-wide listening sessions, with utilities, business owners, and parents, went into developing these protections. They give parents across the country hope that we can avert the terrible consequences of a chaotic climate."

People say it takes a village to raise a child. I say it takes a village to raise a mom. Who does the bulk of that work? Grandmothers. Grandmothers guide us along life's exhilarating and exhausting journeys. They are among the first to set a child's moral compass. And they can be counted on, by all of us, for infinite resets, too.

After all the terrible news from the world's most prestigious climate scientists about the impacts of carbon and methane pollution on our atmosphere, it is nice to have a reset of our moods -- from a grandmother.

There's excellent news in the air: First, an important win in the courts, upholding the important Mercury and Air Toxics Standards that will do so much to protect the developing brains, hearts and lungs of our babies and children. Then, stunning news from the Supreme Court, upholding EPA's right to regulate the pollution coming from coal plants in the Midwest and Appalachia, creating blankets of smog that waft out of states like Ohio and Kentucky -- triggering waves of asthma attacks -- into states like Maine and Tennessee.

The Supreme Court decision on the "good neighbor" regulation of coal pollution was written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And yes, she's a grandmother. Just sayin'.

The Cross-State Air Pollution rule crossed party lines from the beginning. "We don't want Kentucky's dirty air," said Republican Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander. "Nine million tourists [a year] come to see the Great Smoky Mountains, not the Great Smoggy Mountains." Republican Senator and New Hampshire mom Kelly Ayotte, who bravely crossed party lines to join Senator Jeanne Shaheen in support of the rule during a Congressional attack, welcomed the Supreme Court decision on behalf of her downwind state.

I don't understand why Kentucky allows itself to stand for dirty coal -- at a time when coal companies themselves boast of being able to produce clean coal to their shareholders. My grandmother lived in Kentucky, and some of my most cherished memories are of spending time sitting in her lap, basking in her goodness. She valued honesty, decorum, kindness and thrift. She certainly knew what it meant to be a good neighbor. She loved the outdoors -- she loved spending time at the family farm. She never raised her voice. But she always made herself heard.

Moms Clean Air Force boasts a joyful number of grandmothers, judging from the comments we get. Women who care, women who are concerned about what we are leaving behind for the next generations, women who understand that we have a moral obligation to keep the village safe.

Mother's Day is coming up, but I want to preempt it with a shout-out to the world's grandmothers. You are our models: your passion, persistence and power -- tempered by years of reality checks -- are beacons for us all.

Now, onto the Mother of All Pollution Battles -- against the carbon and methane emissions that cause global warming. A grandmother's work is never done.

]]>Finding Hope in the Pale Blue Dottag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2014:/theblog//3.50915912014-04-08T11:50:19-04:002014-06-08T05:59:01-04:00Dominique Browninghttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dominique-browning/report on our changing climate, from a distinguished group of international scientists, was the most heart-wrenching yet. Rising seas, acidifying oceans, melting ice caps, worsening droughts, floods, heat waves and intensifying migrations and extinctions: all these are happening more rapidly than scientists had predicted they would in 1990, the year the first IPCC report was released.

1990. Nearly 25 years ago. My sons were six and four years old, and I was an editor at Newsweek magazine. We reported on climate change. And I assumed that a problem as urgent, with such dire consequences, would be responsibly dealt with by the world's leaders.

Twenty four years after the release of the first IPCC report in 1990, annual carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels have increased by nearly 50 percent. We are feeling the effects of a changing climate. This is not a distant problem.

There's something else I remember from 1990, and it is curiously connected. It gives me hope: The Pale Blue Dot. That was the name given to a photo of Earth, sent from 3.5 billion miles away, at the edge of the solar system. It was taken from the Voyager probe, launched to study the outer solar system. "A mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam," scientist Carl Sagan called our Earth when he pondered that picture.

That same year, 1990, also saw the invention of the first web server, laying down the foundation for the worldwide web. And scientists at Bell Labs announced the invention of optical processors, using pulses of light, paving the way for superfast computers.

That the human mind is stunningly, startlingly, capable of such feats of engineering, harnessed to such brilliant bursts of imagination, might go without saying by now. But it bears remembering.

We have the capacity to invent solutions. We will keep raising our voices, to get through the noise and corruption of science deniers and their political flunkies. We will also find solutions that reach across Democrat and Republican values. Right now, human values trump everything.

Now it is time to focus on what we can do to fix this problem. Cut greenhouse gas emissions. Simple -- and terribly complicated. But we've done the inconceivable before, and we can again.

We can solve this. There are signs that we will, all around us:

In December, 15 states wrote to EPA in support of strong Carbon Pollution Standards, outlining how their states have achieved reductions of 17 to 46 percent in carbon pollution between 2005 and 2011.

More than 30 states have programs deploying cleaner energy and energy efficiency -- cutting pollution, saving money and creating jobs. State energy efficiency and renewable energy policies avoided more than 120 million metric tons of carbon pollution in 2012.

We need much more of this kind of leadership. Quickly.

By now, the Voyager has rocketed into interstellar space. So far, we have found nothing like our Pale Blue Dot. Nothing like our home, nothing like the place where generations of families have loved, grieved, hoped and laughed with the sheer exhilaration at being alive. I want our children, and theirs and on down the line, to bask in the same blessing of the Pale Blue Dot.

For all our sakes, let's unite our voices in imagining, engineering and supporting solutions, so that our children will someday look back in wonder, and awe, at what humankind is capable of accomplishing.

]]>An Interview With Michael Oppenheimertag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2014:/theblog//3.49857702014-03-19T11:29:33-04:002014-05-19T05:59:01-04:00Dominique Browninghttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dominique-browning/Dr. Michael Oppenheimer with some trepidation, expecting that I would have to pick myself up off the floor after our interview. After all, if anyone understands the true nature of our changing climate, and the impact of greenhouse pollution on our way of life, it is a scientist whose lifelong passion has been the study of atmospheric gases.

I wanted to know how scientists really talk to each other when the rest of us aren't in the room. Are they saying we're cooked? I figured I would be pretty depressed at the end of our hour together.

"Well, I suppose that depends on whether your mother dropped you on your head when you were three-years-old," Oppenheimer said, laughing. "Mine didn't, so I'm an optimist."

Our conversation threaded through so many topics, as I peppered Dr. Oppenheimer with questions. So rather than present you with a simple Q&A with him, I've pulled out and highlighted key messages, lessons, observations and themes that came up over the course of an hour -- Dr. Oppenheimer amplifies each one.

I left Dr. Oppenheimer's office feeling hopeful, yet my sense of urgency was renewed: This is a life-altering problem. I am inspired to keep up the pressure on our President, on our legislators, and on our business engineering and technology innovators and leaders, to address the critical problem of climate change.

Dr. Oppenheimer, how is climate change different from any other problem we've ever had to face?

"Don't treat climate change as a simple pollution problem."

Pollution problems are simple. Stop putting out the pollution -- stop the offending activity -- and the problem goes away.

"...and never forget, greenhouse gas pollution is different from anything we have ever done."

Greenhouse gas pollution is not like any other pollution problem we have ever experienced in one key way. For all practical purposes, it's irreversible. And we cannot ever forget this. Greenhouse gases remain in the atmosphere for decades, centuries, even millennia after they are released.

So we are gambling with humanity, aren't we?

"We do not want to create a problem too big to manage."

There is a strong, scientific case for urgency in stopping greenhouse gas pollution. And it is this: We don't really know how bad things will become. We create windows into the future by doing the best we can, as scientists, to produce scenarios of the danger. That's where the 2 degree warming target we're all talking about now comes from. That's where, to me, the risk looks too high to tolerate. So we should try to stay well short of that level of warming.

We don't want to create a problem too big to manage.

Before we get climate change turned around, we could go over a cliff. We just don't know where that cliff is.

In NYC, we are talking about how to manage sea level rise of as much as five feet over the 21st century. But if we get to the point where the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets are melting and largely disappearing, we are talking about a 30 to 40 ft. sea level rise over subsequent centuries. No coastal city will be able to handle that.

Is there anything in our collective "tool kit" -- as a democracy -- that has prepared us for dealing with a problem as calamitous as climate change?

"We've been here before."

We've always lived in a cloud of uncertainty about the world around us -- and about what we know about risk. Just because you live with it, doesn't mean you let it go on. We have the power to make things happen.

Things do look terrible. We've been here before. We have been in terrible predicaments, as a human race, before.

From the time I was born until I was 40, we lived under a cloud of fear that the world would be destroyed in a nuclear holocaust. It was a tense, hostile time in this country. Everyone was worried that we were all going to be blown up by the Russians. The students on campuses were being tear-gassed. And we were demonstrating for peace! I can't tell you how much that affected my life -- all of our lives.

Between 1945 and 1986, we built up a lot of infrastructure to make sure we would not blow each other up with weapons of mass destruction. It took years. And a great deal of hard work. But we did it. We more or less fixed that terrible mess, one that looked like it would kill us all (and still might, but the risk is lower).

We cannot expect climate treaties to happen overnight.

How concerned should we be about passing specific thresholds of carbon emissions in the atmosphere?

"Climate risks escalate over time: Some of the changes we are seeing were not expected to occur so soon -- or at all."

Going from say, 440 to 450 parts per million [referring to concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere] doesn't change the climate in any notable way, particularly in the near term. Rather than a sharp threshold, it's more a point above which the risks rapidly escalate over time.

Taking the longer perspective, some of the changes we've seen already which, as recently as the mid-1990s, were not expected to occur so soon or at all include rapid shrinkage at the margins of the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica contributing to an acceleration of sea level rise, more intense heavy precipitation events, and large reductions in the Arctic summer sea ice pack.

Knowing how enormous a problem this is, how do you get out of bed in the morning?

"Optimism versus pessimism?"

People might be born optimistic or pessimistic. Or maybe it depends on whether your mother dropped you on your head when you were three years old!

Some people -- and some scientists -- just take a bleak view of the world. I'm not one of them. I have seen amazing things happen in the course of my lifetime, things I never dreamed.

People have a way of messing things up. But we also fix things. We clean up after ourselves -- even though sometimes, it seems as our ability to solve problems is not as good as our ability to create them.

I don't want to live in a world where I have to be worried all the time. I choose to remain optimistic.

How do you ground your optimism in reality? I mean, it can't just be a willful leap of faith, can it?

"I have three reasons to be optimistic."

On climate change, I remain optimistic -- with good reason. Actually, these days, I have three good reasons. And they all have to do with how unknowable the future is. Things happen that surprise us, things that we did not expect. They change the course of events.

1. We have a President who at long last seems to want to build a legacy around addressing the climate problem. His administration's new fuel efficiency standards are a big step. And so are the power plant carbon pollution rules now being developed by the EPA. Obama is sending powerful signals to the world, and to our own citizens, about a renewed U.S. interest in taking a leadership role in the fight against climate change. And what he proposes is doable.

2. Our ability to tap into reserves of shale gas was totally unpredicted. Natural gas can be a huge help -- if we don't let the methane leak out during development and use and make the mess even worse. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas. The shale gas process also risks polluting water supplies. That is why it is so critical that the gas developers are strongly regulated and carefully monitored, for both methane leaks and chemical pollution. It has to be leak-proof.

But we are seeing U.S. carbon emissions drop significantly because of all the natural gas coming online. That's good.

I don't buy the argument that natural gas development distracts us from investing in renewables. They can work hand in hand. It is not clear that there is a trade-off. Meanwhile, we're keeping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

Technology will never cease to amaze -- and surprise -- us (positively and negatively). Our energy systems are changing, radically. Utilities will be forced to become less centralized, and to encourage distributed power. We need to make sure that the positives outweigh the negatives, and that part of it is under our control.

We have big decisions to make about what the grid of the future will look like. Using energy more efficiently can be extremely helpful. And we should stop fighting every two years about renewable tax credits. It creates too much uncertainty and inefficiency.

3. China. The Chinese have already driven down the price of solar energy to levels we wouldn't have dreamed of ten years ago. They've made solar into a big buy. Germany's political decision to rely so heavily on renewables -- 50 percent by 2030 -- was made much easier by the Chinese ability to get a market going. The Chinese government knows that it will have a revolution on its hands if it continues to pollute the air and poison people. So it will make big changes, quickly.

Is climate change a problem that is too big for a democracy to handle? I'm sure the alternatives are worse: a dictator global government on environment. But we need some sort of global agreement -- and that seems so difficult to achieve; we can't even get consensus on what to do in this country.

"What makes treaties work?"

My father was into politics. My mother was into nature. I see those two strands defining my life's work. One of the most interesting things about my work has been exploring a big question: How do you turn scientific consensus into a political mandate?

Right now, I am teaching a course on International Environmental Treaties at the NYU Law School. We're exploring how countries come together to make strong, binding commitments to each other. What are the key elements? How do countries build trust, and how do they build institutions that are capable of supporting treaties?

The United States isn't the only player anymore. It isn't even the most important player in some respects. And right now, we have factions within our own government that don't even want governments, much less treaties. We seem unable to set political partisanship aside, even in the face of a terrible -- global -- problem. So our own infrastructure isn't functioning properly.

Of course, if we could get China, the U.S., and the EU in a room and agree to stop greenhouse gas pollution quickly, the problem would be solved. Unfortunately, that is not going to happen anytime soon. But if I could choose my solution, it would be great to have a climate treaty among key nations.

How do you talk about climate peril with your own children? How do you educate them, without terrifying them?

"Youth is always the answer."

I try not to take my work home with me every night. But I don't have to talk about climate change at the dinner table for my children to know all about it. My daughter is 23 and my son is 15. I wouldn't have to indoctrinate them, even if I wanted to. Climate change is in the air now -- so to speak. It is embedded in the culture they are growing up in. It's mentioned in movies, on television, by celebrities. Young people aren't deniers. Youth is always the answer. To paraphrase Max Planck, intellectual progress is made one funeral at a time.

It will take a long time to shed a generation of deniers. Back to getting out of bed in the morning: where does hope come from?

"Paralysis is ridiculous."

Look, we're used to living with messes. Everybody is -- every day. Things feel like a mess in so many parts of our lives, but if you struggle, you can make them better.

People don't give up. We find better ways to get things done. Paralysis is ridiculous. It isn't the human story. It isn't what we do. We need luck. And we need hard work.

What do you see as the biggest, most alarming problem as you think about how we tackle climate change?

"We don't know how close to disaster we are."

The biggest problem? We don't really know how close to disaster we are. There is a potential for a very bad outcome no matter what we do. You have to let this motivate you -- and not paralyze you.

If a problem looks too daunting people are paralyzed. It's better to talk about solutions that extract creative thinking. It's better to keep flexibility in our system -- and in our democracy which can be a beautiful thing when it's working.

There is no one solution to climate change. There will be many. We don't even know now, where all the solutions are going to come from. People say "better lucky than smart." In this case, we better be both, or the future will be awfully grim.

One day, my younger son came home from school and asked to have a heart-to-heart talk. He announced that he had just learned that love did not come from the heart, as I had always told him. It came from the brain. I protested, of course. Sometimes it is a mom's job to befuddle facts. "I feel love in my heart, darling," I said. "And my heart hurts when love goes away. Not my brain. How do you explain that?"

He was just young enough to be learning the most basic things about the science of the human being. I was just old enough to be learning the most basic things about the soul of the human being.

All this was on my mind as I was reading our new fact sheet on heart health. Heart disease is the leading cause of death among women. Number one killer. And it turns out that air pollution contributes mightily to our heart problems, too. We can do something about this -- for everyone's sake.

All too often, we don't feel the disease as it takes hold in our hearts. Maybe because they are so full of love. And maybe because we're so busy worrying about everyone else's hearts.

The love that comes from our brains is the love that keeps us fighting to clean up our air, to make sure the planet we pass on to the next generation is one in which they will be safe.

Which brings me to matters of the soul. We hold so many hearts dear -- whether our grandchildren's, or sister's and brother's, or our own babies. Air pollution is soul-killing -- I get a sickened feeling when I see smog blanketing our cities, when I think that some people treat our skies as their sewers, when I learn more about the greenhouse gases changing our climate. Ignoring the problem is soul killing, too.

So, for heart and soul, let's keep cleaning up our air.

Thank you all for joining me in this most important, and urgently needed, work.